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War for the Overworld is a next-generation Dungeon Management Game that sees you as a villainous god-like entity in charge of running your very own Dungeon.Influenced by Dungeon Keeper, Overlord and Evil Genius.

About this project

War for the Overworld

£211,371

pledged of £150,000 goal

8,351

backers

We've fused together the best components from the RTS and god game genres to create War for the Overworld; here you will find familiar elements from Dungeon Keeper, Overlord, StarCraft and Evil Genius.

Your domain lies beneath the surface of this realm, and it is here that you will begin to build your sinful empire. The forces of good in this land will do everything in their power to stop you — read on to learn how you will thwart them.

December 18: Pre-alpha gameplay demo launched! Base functionality has been added like digging, reinforcing, and claiming. Some basic spells and room placement have been added. Updates are scheduled for the remaining few weekends for bug fixes and new functionality.

“War for the Overworld is shaping up to be a great God Game that brings back fond memories of both creating and playing Dungeon Keeper 2. I wish the team the best of British in bringing their creation to life.”– David Amor, Chief Creative Officer at Relentless, ex-Bullfrog Productions

"I am quivering with demonic anticipation at the thought of helping to bring War For The Overworld to fetid fruition, taking over where Dungeon Keeper left off - this will be the last word in evil. Mwuahahaha!" - Rich Ridings

"It's scandalous that nobody has yet managed to create a game that captures the spirit of the original Dungeon Keeper. Scandalous! I have high hopes that War for the Overworld will correct this, and give fans something that will make them happy. Can I have my free copy now?" – Simon Carter, project lead on Dungeon Keeper and freebie whore

“It’s great to see some fresh blood taking up the wicked mantle and spreading such evil fun once more. Very best of luck chaps!”
– Mike Man, Creative Director at Vostopia, ex-Bullfrog Productions Lead Artist

"I'm incredibly excited about War for the Overworld! It looks like we will finally get the sequel we've been waiting for!"– Simon Roth, creator of Maia

"While an official Dungeon Keeper sequel seems unlikely, next year fans could have the next best thing - a game heavily inspired by the Bullfrog classic built by some of its biggest fans." – Wesley Yin-Poole, Eurogamer, November 29th

"For any fan of Dungeon Keeper this is definitely a lot to take in. I’m sure it’s almost emotional for you as you realise you can finally massacre those self righteous goody-two-shoe heroes once more."– Thomas Mattingly, Indie Statik, November 29th

In War for the Overworld you have the power to create vast dungeons filled with hordes of evil minions who share a common goal: to crush the bones of the goodly heroes that dare to enter your unhallowed halls. You will command mighty armies, create vicious traps and cast dastardly spells to overcome the pitifully gallant armies that defend foolish principles such as "honour" and "righteousness" — it's going to be more fun than taking candy from a baby...

While defeating these dungeon crawlers will be remarkable fun, it will provide only fleeting satisfaction. Fortunately, there is a much larger enemy that stands between you and dominance of the Overworld.

There is no correct way to build a dungeon; however you will quickly learn what suits your unique style in War for the Overworld. Each level opens up as a blank slate and it is up to you and your scaled hand to carve out the world as you best see fit. Because there is no set “level” upon which you play you will have to choose where to dig, fortify, and build the whatever your depraved mind can imagine — whether it is a vast dungeon filled with cavernous rooms or a series of winding hallways that stretch off far into the unknown depths is up to you.

Do you prefer to crash through your enemy's front door with a swarming army, or is subterfuge your game? All game decisions happen in real time whether you're building your dungeon, training your army, issuing orders to your minions or tapping into more primal powers to cast spells upon your foes.

As an Underlord you have the power to call down terrifying spells to wreak havoc and misery upon your foes. Of course there are spells that augment your already formidable creatures in battle. In addition to spells, some of your minions have begun to dabble in the occult and have found many sinful rituals that will influence the entire battlefield. These rituals require many ingredients, and no doubt sacrifice will be involved to make the nastier ones possible.

Entice wicked and devious creatures to your dungeon through Gateways. Keep them in your service by fulfilling their basest desires and they shall eagerly fight for you. Your minions will autonomously work in the rooms of your dungeon that are best suited to their skills — for a price. Some minions require little more than food, but those intelligent enough to perform skilled labour in your dungeon will require pay — make sure to keep your coffers full and you'll have an army in no time!

With dozens of unique rooms to choose from you can create an underground metropolis for your fearful denizens. Each room has a distinct purpose that will draw new minions to your dungeon and provide you with additional utilities.

Fortify your domain by placing various doors throughout the dank halls of your dungeon to control enemy movement, or catch unsuspecting trespassers with your murderously designed traps. If you're the kind of player who likes to hide behind static defenses then this vein of evil is right up your well-defended alley.

Within the depths of this realm exist ancient shrines of immense power that are but a murmur of the ancient forces that used to walk this realm. These powerful bastions of magic will grant boons to your creatures and spells, or weaken those of your enemies. Make sure to keep these shrines defended for their arcane powers only remain yours as long as you control them.

Research and unlock spells, rooms, and traps in each level in a way that best complements your play style. In the Archives your minions will research the three veins of evil (Sloth, Greed, and Wrath) to grant you the rooms, traps, and spells that you want to play with.

The initial campaign will include the first chapter of the single-player experience where you face off against the righteous Emperor Stockington and the vast armies of his Sterling Empire. His mighty generals have been called to a war council in the capital of Socksford in preparation for war... how delightfully charming. Further chapters of the campaign and plans for additional story features will be revealed soon!

In Multiplayer you will finally prove once and for all who is the best of the worst amongst you. With dozens of customizable settings, you and as many of your friends as you want can battle in unranked free-for-all battle and team matches.

With the power of the developers in your hands you have the potential to realize your fiendish desires. In this mode almost anything is possible. Whether you want to craft labyrinths with increasingly difficult hazards for sport (bookie not included), or build a massive dungeon for your creatures to roam is up to you as you command the very rocks of the Underworld in Sandbox mode.

What you see on our Kickstarter page was created by us over the past few months. Every member of our team has dedicated their free time to work on this project while also holding down full-time jobs. By helping us reach our initial goal you will allow us to work on this project full time long enough to complete the game (in addition to helping us pay for expensive software licenses (Unity, Maya, etc), hire voice actors, pay server costs and other small expenses that crop up during development [coffee]).

On behalf of every member of the team — thank you for your support!

Spending breakdown:

Communication is vitally important to us, and we suspect you feel the same way. Our goal is to be as transparent as possible on our end. So far we’ve done our best to update our page with additional information that was either unlisted or hard to find. We are almost certain that by going through this page and our website your questions have will be answered. If you still have questions please get in touch with us — we will resolve any questions you might have within 24 hours.

Building off of our dedication to open communication we have set firm release dates for our Bedrock Beta (March 30, 2013) and base game (August 30, 2013).

We’ve done this to ensure that YOU know exactly what to expect from our campaign and when to expect the game — instead of a broad “in X year” or the dreaded “when it’s ready” — we don’t want you to guess when you’ll get the game.

Our Kickstarter video was narrated by the phenomenally talented actor Richard Ridings. We believe there is no one better to voice your actions in War for the Overworld. If you help us reach £225,000 we will be able to hire him on as the narrator for the entire game and pay for studio costs associated with his recording. After we reach this goal, we will move on to our Flex Goal system.

We sat down and discussed the best way to allow our crowdfunded project to best reflect the desires of the people who were backing it. Since the idea of predetermined additional features did not sit well with us we took the existing paradigm of Stretch Goals and improved upon it. We settled on the idea of Flex Goals — which allow you to choose which additional features you want added to the game.

For every £75,000, there will be a Flex Goal unlock. After our campaign ends, all supporters will be able to vote on which features they want added to the game through our backer-exclusive website. These features are extensions and will be developed after the base game has been completed. We anticipate each will take no longer than four months to implement (with some features being far easier to implement). We will continue to add Flex Goals to the game until we run out of funding. In-depth explanations of Flex Goals are coming soon!

Matchmaking & Ranking: We will implement more advanced skirmish matchmaking, ranked ladders, and player statistics for a fully featured and competitive multiplayer experience.

2 Lords 1 Dungeon: Two Underlords will be able to cooperate in the same Dungeon.

Controller Interface: We will develop a controller friendly interface which will allow us to support Ouya & Steam Big Picture, and possibly the Xbox Live Arcade & PlayStation Network.

Extended Underlord Campaign: We will add additional chapters to the Underlord campaign.

Empire Campaign: Play as the Empire and battle a series of Underlords in a full-length campaign.

Co-op Campaign: Team up and take on the Empire with your friends in a specially designed campaign chapter.

Competitive Campaign: Assume the role of an Underlord or the Empire and fight one another in a full-length versus campaign chapter.

Arcade Campaign: The moderately insane Underlord Eccentrious has given you some...interesting tasks in order to gain his favour including Golf, Dodgeball, Whack-A-Dwarf, Tag & more.

The Adventures of Stumpy the Imp: Take control of Stumpy the Imp as he ventures through a full-length first person campaign throughout the Underworld.

Survival Mode: A co-op survival mode where you and your friends must build an impenetrable fortress to fend off ever increasingly difficult waves of enemies - who can survive the longest against this onslaught?

Almost everyone on the team has modded a game at one time or another and we want to give you the power to easily mod War for the Overworld.

Because of this we've created an editing tool that we call Dungeoneer. This tool will allow you to create your own maps and campaigns in addition to implementing custom assets and creating new game modes.

If you're wondering how powerful it is — we are using Dungeoneer to build the actual game. By working with you we can ensure that Dungeoneer becomes the best tool it can be and will be providing access to it as part of the Bedrock Beta to improve it based on your feedback.

We wouldn't be here without the support of the wonderful community, but we can only reach our base and Flex Goals with YOUR help! Help us by spreading the word.

Have you already pledged? We have this wonderful backer image that you can use anywhere you are looking to spread the word.

Have any other ideas for helping our campaign? Leave a comment on our Kickstarter page or send us a direct message.

Alternatively, you can get in touch with us at the following locations:

Risks and challenges

We all love making games, the past couple of months that we spent on actual development have been amazing, but of course it's not all sunshine and roses -- game development is never an easy task. Some of the problems we have encountered already are the difficulties in working across 8 or so different time zones. This problem created bottlenecks in development. We solved this by creating an Assembla workspace for our project, which has tickets, reports for activity and roadblocks, and all sorts of neat features that keep us all on the exact same page... literally.

We haven't released a game before, it's true, but the quality of what we're doing speaks for itself -- if you have spent a few minutes in the Playable Showcase then you've probably realized that we are committed to a beautiful looking game that plays just like a big-budget title would from an established developer.

Money. We're asking for what we believe is reasonable, budgeted out for at least 8 months of *full time* development, which will easily be enough time to create this game. Considering all progress so far has been done in our spare time, at 40+ hours a week the game will be out faster than you can say Whack-a-Dwarf.

There are two main reasons why we are able to do all of this on what seems like a relatively small budget:

First, the entire game is being built with modability and versatility in mind (it's almost entirely data driven), and as such, piecing the game together once we have conquered a few initial hurdles (many of which we have already achieved or are well on the way to doing so) will be a relatively quick and painless process.

Second, we have all taken a very careful look at what we actually need to keep ourselves going until the release of the game, as that is our goal here: making a game. Our driving passion is to make this game.

FAQ

Yes, but we are still working out the details. However, there is no need to wait for a DRM-free specific tier as any copy of the game from any tier will be exchangeable for a DRM-free version after Kickstarter.

We can currently confirm French and German text localizations, we will be adding support as we progress through the campaign and in the months following (up to the Bedrock Beta). We will have a poll for localization support later down the line and will do our best to get it done professionally so that as many people as possible can enjoy the same polished experience in their native language.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge £100 or more
About $160

- TIER 7: A BOX FULL OF GOODIES - [Approximately: €125 | $160] Tier 6 + Blood Imp Statuette + T-shirt of your choice + Soundtrack CD + More to be revealed & swag to be chosen by the community at a later date!

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge £115 or more
About $184

TIER 8: SET IN STONE

DIGITAL ONLY

[Approximately: €143 | $185] Tier 7 (NO PHYSICAL SWAG) + Your name inscribed into the Founder's Dungeon Theme + Listing in the game credits + Access to the exclusive "Founder's Club" forums where you will have direct access to the development team.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge £150 or more
About $240

TIER 8: SET IN STONE

[Approximately: €188 | $240] Tier 7 + Have your copy of the game signed by some of the development team + Your name inscribed into the Founder's Dungeon Theme + Listing in the game credits + Access to the exclusive "Founder's Club" forums where you will have direct access to the development team.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge £250 or more
About $400

TIER 8: SET IN STONE

SWAG BOOSTER!

[Approximately: €310 | $400] Tier 7 + Have your copy of the game signed by some of the development team + Your name inscribed into the Founder's Dungeon Theme + Listing in the game credits + Access to the exclusive "Founder's Club" forums where you will have direct access to the development team + A poster signed by some of the development team + 2 additional T-Shirts + 2 additional copies of the Kickstarter Edition.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge £400 or more
About $641

TIER 9: I WROTE HISTORY

DIGITAL ONLY

[Approximately: €495 | $640] Tier 8 (NO PHYSICAL SWAG) + 3 Kickstarter Edition gift keys + Work with the developers to create a character that will be referenced in books, inscriptions, and dialogue throughout the game and become a permanent part of the WFTO lore + Meet some of the team! (Travel & Accommodation not included - as we are international, this can be in various locations, email us if you want more details)

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge £500 or more
About $801

---- TIER 9: I WROTE HISTORY ----
[Approximately: €625 | $795] Tier 8 w/ Double the swag + 3 Kickstarter Edition gift keys + Work with the developers to create a character that will be referenced in books, inscriptions, and dialogue throughout the game and become a permanent part of the WFTO lore + Meet some of the team! (Travel & Accommodation not included - as we are international, this can be in various locations, email us if you want more details)

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge £2,500 or more
About $4,004

TIER 11: I MADE A LEGEND

[Approximately: €3,120 | $3,975] Tier 9 w/ Quadruple the swag + 7 more Kickstarter Edition gift keys (10 total) + Work with the developers to name and design your own heroic Guardian that will play a role in the WFTO campaign & storyline.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge £5,000 or more
About $8,008

--- TIER 12: BE AN UNDERLORD ---
[Approximately: €6,240 | $7,945] Tier 9 w/ Quintuple the swag + 17 more Kickstarter Edition gift keys (20 total) + Work with the team to name and design your own Underlord. Includes creation of a unique Heart, Worker, Dungeon Theme, emblem, background story and voice direction. Your creation will play a prominent role in the WFTO campaign & storyline.